While I appreciate everyone's assistance ... you seem to be answering someone else's question :-(
I know from reading what little I have about this matter (generally, VCing $HOME content) that a lotta people, for a long time, has been concerned with what I would call "the output side" (or, temporally, post-commit): they don't want extraneous content to checkout into their $HOME. And this seems to be the question you're addressing with, e.g.,
Mark Stillwell Tue, 10 Feb 2015 13:12:34 +0000 [1]
> set up a vcsh hook that configures the repositories to ignore certain files when they're checked out
Unfortunately, that's not my question/problem[2]: I'm asking about the *input* side, or *pre-commit*: how can I get a README into the root of a vcsh-based repo (to make it available for a remote/web repo) *without* putting it into ${HOME} pre-commit?
Consider the following usecase, alluded to in this issue[3]
>> 1. I want to create multiple vcsh repos for various configurations (bash, emacs, ssh, etc).
>> 2. IIUC, if I create ~/README.rst for project=vcsh-bash, and then change ~/README.rst for project=vcsh-emacs, project=vcsh-bash will see the change as a vcsh diff, no?
but I guess I should've spelled it out:
1. I create repo=vcsh-bash to VC files including ~/.bash* . I add a ~/README.rst to make it available to its remote/web repo, then commit and push.
2. I create repo=vcsh-emacs to VC files including ~/.authinfo , ~/bin/emacsclient_helper.sh , ~/emacs/init.el , etc . I rewrite ~/README.rst to make that available to the remote for vcsh-emacs, then commit and push.
3. I make a change to ~/.bashrc , which I seek to commit to vcsh-bash. `vcsh vcsh-bash status` shows as modified=
* ~/.bashrc : that I intend
* ~/README.rst : that I want to avoid
So do you see how the above is "input-oriented," or am I unclear, or am I missing something?
By contrast, note I'm OK with the following, "output-oriented" usecase (which ISTM is what you're trying to answer): on a fresh machine, I
1. Clone vcsh-bash. This *outputs* or creates ~/README.rst , which I must delete.
2. Clone vcsh-emacs. This again outputs ~/README.rst , which again I must delete.
Net: I don't much care if my repo *outputs* ~/README.rst post-commit , I just don't want to hafta *input* ~/README.rst , pre-commit, to avoid problems with the vcsh equivalents of `git diff` and `git status`.
TIA, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche at pobox.com>
[1]: http://lists.madduck.net/pipermail/vcs-home/2015-February/000979.html
[2]: http://lists.madduck.net/pipermail/vcs-home/2015-February/000978.html
[3]: https://github.com/RichiH/vcsh/issues/147